In Charlestown, two developers win approval for new life-sciences complex while another readies plans for new residential complex

The BPDA board last week approved plans for a two-building life-sciences complex at 66 Cambridge St. in Sullivan Square, an Orange Line stop away from where another developer says it will soon file detailed plans for a 700-unit residential complex.

Approval of The Owens Companies and the Fallon Co.'s 800,000-square-foot life-sciences complex comes just as demand for life-sciences space in the Boston area is slowing.
SGA and DREAM Collaborative

In addition to lab and related office space, their proposed four-acre project will include 10,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and nearly an acre of publicly accessible open space, as well as 482 parking spaces. The site would include sidewalks aimed at re-stitching the Lost Village with the rest of Charlestown.

Also last week, Trinity Financial submitted a "letter of intent," signalling it will soon submit formal plans to replace what are now parking lots near the Community College T stop with four buildings with a total of 900,000 square feet of space for "approximately 700 residential units, artist live/work space, gallery space, commercial space, indoor recreational space, and early childhood education space," along with 245 parking spaces, a public plaza and playing fields. The residential units would be split between apartments and condos.

The BPDA selected Trinity last fall to redevelop the city-owned lots, based on an application that promised that 58% of the apartments would be rented to people making no more than 50% of the Boston area median income - with 100 of the apartments going to people making no more than 50% of that level. Some 56% of the condos would be sold to people making between 80% and 100% of that level, under the company's winning bid.

66 Cambridge St. filings.
Austin Street Lots redevelopment filings.